Internet piracy to cost 1 million EU jobs
Over a million jobs and up to €240 billion in business could be lost in the European Union over the next five years as a result of illegal downloading, according to a new study into Internet piracy
The study, by Paris-based TERA Consultants for the International Chamber of Commerce, focused on piracy in Europe's music, film, television and software industries.
Those industries generated €860 billion and employed 14.4 million people in 2008. But in the same year, €10 billion and 186,000 jobs were lost to piracy, the study found.
If that trend continues – and the rapid increase in illegal downloads and advancing piracy techniques suggest it will – then up to 1.2 million jobs and €240 billion worth of European commerce could be wiped out by 2015.
"In the near future and even today in 2010, we observe increasing bandwidth, increasing penetration rate in terms of the Internet," said TERA Consultants' Patrice Geoffron, explaining that piracy was likely to increase.
